Discerning God's Presence

In Leaving Church, after she had left her parish and began to experience life after church, Barbara Brown Taylor records her new sense of God's presence:

Gradually I remember what I had known all along, which is that church is not a stopping place but a starting place for discerning God's presence in this world. By offering people a place where they may engage the steady practice of listening to divine words and celebrating divine sacraments, church can help people gain a feel for how God shows up -- not only in Holy Bibles and Holy Communion but also in near neighbors, mysterious strangers, sliced bread, and grocery store wine. That way, when they leave church they no more leave God than God leaves them. They simply carry what they have learned into the wide, wide world, where there is a crying need for people who will recognize the holiness in things and hold them up to God.

I believe that this is a word of wisdom worth hearing -- church isn't the end place, it's the starting place!

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